ES2351825A1 - Procedure to prepare plates and prefabricated for construction. (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding) - Google Patents

Abstract

Process for making plates or other prefabricated elements for the construction by means of a base material such as polyester resin, reinforced with mollusc shells and slate flakes, comprising a preparation step of the base material, a step of grinding the mollusc shells and slate chips; a mixing step in which the prepared base material and mollusc shells are mixed in a kneader; a step of pressing the mixture into a mold; one drying step; one calibration step and one polishing step. (Machine-translation by Google Translate, not legally binding)

Description

Procedure for making plates and Prefabricated for construction.

Field of the Invention

The present invention consists of a procedure for making plates or other prefabricated elements by means of resins reinforced mainly with remains of shells of mollusks

Its field of application is the manufacture of auxiliary elements in the construction of buildings, by example decorative plates for floors or walls, countertops for kitchens or bathrooms, etc ...

On the other hand, by taking advantage of materials waste like shellfish shells, it can also be considered that It is within the field of recycling.

Background of the invention

The shellfish processing industries have the problem of what to do with the shells that result from their production. Especially the canning industry of mussels. A CSIC report of the year 1994 calculated that the Galician community produced 250,000 tons of mussels per year, of which around 60% was processed in the canneries.

The easiest but least ecological solution is throw them into the sea or landfills. Other known solution is to dry the shells, crush and grind them to dust produce lime, as described in WO / 1997/015398. However, with this procedure only one product is produced cheap, lime, which does not cover the costs of its manufacture.

Another solution is to carefully wash the shells, grind them until reduced to tenth sizes of mm, mix them with a resin in the appropriate proportions and manufacture plates by an impregnation procedure. I also know You can mix with glass, or use cement or other material base. This procedure is described in Spanish patents. ES2179783, ES2251314 and ES2273597. However, the need for a careful washing and grinding, to mix in the exact proportions so that the piece does not have heterogeneities and vacuum molding, which is a slow process and only suitable for some types of parts, what They do little suitable to take advantage of waste materials.

On the contrary, the procedure of the invention has the advantage that it serves to manufacture parts for simply flat construction, like tiles, but also with forms as complicated as desired, such as countertops, sinks and even moldings, ornaments or sculptures. This provides a value. added that makes the recycling of waste from profitable canning industries such as mussel shells.

Another advantage is that the procedure does not require a very strict washing or grinding, but a simple crushing until reach sizes of the order of the centimeter, using methods of pressure molding, which implies higher tolerances and lower costs in the manufacturing process. Technology would be similar to that used to make pieces of terrazzo, so the cost of starting to produce with this new procedure would be Low and short deadlines.

The process of the invention has been developed after checking that although shells are not crushed until a size smaller than 1 cm continues to provide stiffness as reinforcement of the finished piece. In addition, the aesthetic effect on the piece Finished is similar to granite or other natural stones. He inconvenient of using shell or slate fragments of this size is the heterogeneity of the material, which damages the finish; however, as will be seen in the description of the procedure, adding a final step of polishing the piece, this inconvenience disappears, obtaining pieces with a good finish, an aesthetic attractive to the final consumer and at a lower cost than with Other known procedures.

Description of the invention

The process of the invention has as object to manufacture construction parts such as tiles, countertops, sinks or moldings using reinforced plastic with reinforcing materials comprising pieces of shells coming of waste from mollusc processing factories, by example shells of mussels, clams or cockles. Too other residual elements may be added as reinforcement material from other industries, for example small slate lacquers of quarries and carving workshops of this material.

The procedure begins separated into two branches, in a first, the reinforcement material is prepared, mainly shellfish shells, and in a second branch the resin mixture with additives, catalysts, etc.

The first branch can start with a step of cleaned, in which they are cleaned of dirt or other foreign elements the shells of mollusks or slate shells.

In a second step, the crushing step is crush until you reach the desired size, which will usually be in the order of the centimeter, without requiring great homogeneity in the fragments after crushing.

In the second branch there is a preparation step of the resin, in which the base material is mixed, generally a resin, although another product could also be used accepted in the construction of buildings, such as cement. Resin It could be any of the known (polyester, epoxy, phenolic ...), but for reasons of economy it will be preferably polyester resin. In this step, the base resin is mixed with the catalysts and if necessary with dyes or with additives suitable to achieve other characteristics in the piece finished

Both branches come together in the mixing step. This is produced in a kneader, in which the resin already prepared and on the other the reinforcement consisting of Mollusc shells already crushed.

After mixing well in the mixer, the pressing step The resin blend reinforced with shells mollusks are poured into the mold of the piece to be manufactured, where put under pressure and vibrated to get a distribution uniform inside the mold. The mold can be changed, using for each batch of manufacture the one that conforms the piece to Supply: slabs, tiles, countertops, sinks, moldings ... procedure of the invention supports the production of many kinds of elements for construction.

It is then unmold and continue with the drying step, which can be with heat or simply leaving them a time until the necessary curing of the resin or of the base material used.

The next step is the calibration step of the piece, in which it is verified that it conforms to the measurements projected, and if necessary it is combined with a cut of the burrs that may have remained after the demoulding.

The last step is polishing, where the piece the necessary finish for the purpose for which it is going to use, finer in the case of countertops and less if you want a rougher finish, for example for wall plates that mimic natural stone.

Brief description of the drawing

To help explain the procedure for elaborate plates and prefabricated for the construction of the invention a figure with a diagram of the procedure, which should be considered as an illustrative example and not limiting. In this diagram two groups of materials used in the procedure, although in different realizations some types of materials or others will be used:

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R1 - Base material (Resin)

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R2 - Catalysts

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R3 - Dyes and additives

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M1 - Shells mollusks

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M2 - Slate Lascas

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P - Finished piece.

The following steps of the procedure, although some embodiments will have all the steps and others only some:

1.1 -

Cleaning step

1.2 -

Crushing step

2 -

Resin Preparation Step

3 -

mixing step

4 -

pressing step

5 -

drying step

6 -

calibration step

7 -

polishing step

Description of a preferred embodiment of the invention

The procedure begins on the one hand preparing the reinforcement material, which will preferably be shells of mollusks (M1), but optionally others can also be incorporated materials (M2), such as slate lacquers. These Materials (M1 and M2) are incorporated into the procedure in a first cleaning step (1.1), in which soil or other earth is removed foreign elements of shellfish shells (M1) or lacquers of slate (M2), without needing to be a thorough cleaning.

The following is the crushing step (1.2), in which are crushed to the desired size, which it will generally be in the order of the centimeter, without it being It is necessary to achieve great homogeneity.

Parallel to this is the preparation step of the resin (2), in which the base material (R1) is mixed, generally a resin, although parts based on cement, for example. In this example resin of polyester. In this step, the base resin is mixed with the catalysts (R2) and with dyes (R3) and other additives.

The next step, where the products come together above, is the mixing step (3). This occurs in a kneader, in which the resin already prepared is poured on one side and on the other the reinforcement consisting of mollusc shells crushed

After mixing well in the mixer, the pressing step (4). The resin blend reinforced with shells mollusks are poured into the mold of the piece to be manufactured, where put under pressure and vibrated to get a distribution uniform inside the mold.

It is then unmold and continue with the drying step (5), which in the specific embodiment example does not use heat

The next step is the calibration step of the piece (6): it is checked that the pieces conform to the measurements projected, and if necessary burrs are cut left after unmolding.

The last step is polishing (7), where by Abrasives are given to the piece the desired finish.

Finally the finished piece (P) is obtained, which It is packaged for transport to the place of distribution or utilization.

In this specific example of embodiment, used the following components (proportions by weight):

- mussel shells and other mollusks:

75.75%

- resin polyester:

22.73%

- dyes:

1.52%

quad

composed of:

quad

- 0.34% secants

quad

-0.42% dye

quad

- 0.76 brightener.

However, these components and proportions they should be considered an example of concrete realization, without limiting nature, and in other embodiments may be use other materials and other proportions, tulle as has indicated in the description.

Claims (6)

1. Procedure for making plates or other prefabricated elements for construction by means of a base material reinforced with a reinforcing material, preferably shell shells, characterized in that it comprises at least one step of preparing the base material (2); a crushing step (1.2) of the mollusk shells; a mixing step (3) where the prepared base material and the reinforcement material, preferably shellfish shells, are mixed in a kneader; a pressing step (4) of the mixture of base material and reinforcement material in a mold of the workpiece; and a drying step (5). 2. Procedure for making plates or other prefabricated elements for construction according to claim 1 characterized in that after the drying step (5) there is at least one polishing step (7). 3. Procedure for making plates or other prefabricated elements for construction according to any of claims 1 or 2 characterized in that after the drying step (5) there is at least one calibration step (6). 4. Process for making plates or other prefabricated elements for construction according to any of claims 1 to 3 characterized in that the base material is a synthetic resin. 5. Procedure for making plates or other prefabricated elements for construction according to any of claims 1 to 3 characterized in that the base material is a cement. Method for making plates or other prefabricated elements for construction according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the reinforcing material comprises shells of mollusks and slate shells.